beholder stuff

[KillHappy]

How much of a CR modification would it be to give a creature the beholders-"anti magic cone" ability?

I just want to make some low to mid level combat based creatures that the party has to do more than just "spell up" to beat.

 

[Krishnath]

Depends on the creature, why don't you try setting them up against a creature that casts spells as a sorcerer, like an Aranea (casts spells as a 3rd level sorcerer, CR: 4), Drider (6th-level spellcaster of choice, CR: 7), or a drow spellcaster of appopriate level (has spell resistance also, CR: roughly drows lvl +1). That would give them a taste of their own medicine, and make sure that the creature knows a summon spell or two

 

[KillHappy]

I've tried a few of those before and they work out pretty well. But I want the antimagic side of these for an actual storyline reason. I probably wouldn't run these guys if we didn't have basically all fighter types.

 

[Krishnath]

As I said it depends on the creature. But probably +1 if the creature in question has quite a number of powerfull attacks (similar to a beholder, who can fire 10 rays a round )

 

[Sojourn]

In other beholder news, I once ran a beholder battle against a 1st level party. Horrible, shameless overkill? Not quite: The set up is the PCs are all meeting for the very first time. I set their miniatures in a ring, so they all faced each other, and allowed them to describe their characters and make introductions. BUT! I also put a ring of very powerful monster miniatures surrounding them- beholders, dragons, demons, things vastly out of their league. I put one directly behind each PC miniature. Now- the PLAYERS can see the miniatures. And the other PCs can see the monsters standing behind their new friends. But the PCs can't see what's standing behind them. The monsters will not attack until someone turns around and looks at them. So the entire party has the ability to save each PC- as long as he doesn't turn and look at the doom standing behind him, it won't activate, and the other PCs can kill it. Pretty simple, since these are almost all illusions, cast by the Black Dragon who is real, and is testing the party for loyalty, ingenuity, critical thinking, and teamwork before he enslaves them all and sends them on the real (1st level) module. However! The players quickly figured out these were all illusions and stopped taking them seriously, which meant some of them had to be real, because you never just ignore a threat like that. There is a very specific way to defeat the trap, and ignoring it is not an option. So the beholder was also real. The Beholder's drawback is he can only use 1 eyebeam, and only on his intended target. But he gets to activate a new eyebeam every round, until by the end of round 11 they're all active. And he gets an additional eyebeam every round he's attacked my more than 1 PC. Starting with the weakest eyes (charm, charm, fear) and working up to the Deathrays and Petrifier. It was a 1st level party so the anti-magic ray didn't matter much. They killed it when it was about 1/2 strength. And speaking of "Beholder Stuff" PCs later found a stuffed beholder (like taxidermy, not like a plush toy) on the nightstand/trophy case of a mid size black dragon. And Halaster Blackcloak's Robe of Eyes is a robe of beholder eyes- very dangerous.